The goal of the collaboration is to jointly develop a common fuel cell electric vehicle system to reduce investment costs associated with the engineering of the technology. Strategies like maximizing design commonality, leveraging volume and deriving efficiencies through economies of scale will help to launch the world’s first affordable, mass-market FCEVs as early as 2017.

“Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers,” said Raj Nair, group vice president, Global Product Development, Ford Motor Company. “We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone.”

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The partners plan to develop a common fuel cell stack and fuel cell system that can be used by each company in the launch of highly differentiated, separately branded FCEVs, which produce no carbon emissions while driving.

The collaboration also sends a clear signal to suppliers, policymakers, and the industry to encourage further development of hydrogen refuelling stationsand other infrastructure necessary to allow the vehicles to be mass-marketed.

“We are convinced that fuel cell vehicles will play a central role for zero-emission mobility in the future. Thanks to the high commitment of all three partners we can put fuel cell e-mobility on a broader basis.” said Prof. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development.

Powered by electricity generated from hydrogen and oxygen, FCEVs emit only water while driving. FCEVs are considered complementary to today’s battery electric vehicles and will help expand the range of zero-emission transportation options available to consumers.

“We look forward to a future where we can answer many customer needs by adding FCEVs on top of battery EVs within the zero-emission lineup." said Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Member of the Board of Directors and Executive Vice President of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., supervising Research and Development.